Change the Africa

Change the Africa

Change the Africa

Change the Africa

Change the Africa

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ROOTS is a non profit organization working towards the promotion of economic and social justice among young people in peri-urban, rural and mining communities. The organization’s programming is underpinned by the Human Rights Based Approach to individual and collective development combining soft skills and hard skills as a sustainable development program for women and youth as well as Internally Displaced Populations (IDPs) in rural, mining and peri-urban communities.

Our team is small, but we certainly punch above our weight. We are involved in local dialogue and capacity building but are also actively involved in national discourse in issues affecting youth empowerment and Sexual and Reproductive Health.

While most of our work is at grassroots level working with Internally Displaced Young People, young people in mining and farming communities, we do our advocacy work at both local level (with local leadership such as chiefs) and national level (with parliamentarians and various government line ministries). On the 14th of January 2015 we together with a partner supported 2 child brides (Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi) we work with to take the government of Zimbabwe to the Constitutional Court challenging Marriage Laws that allow girls to be married before they reach the age of 18.

ROOTS also functions as a solidarity centre providing economic and psycho-social support to victims of child marriages and Gender Based Violence. The ultimate purpose of ROOTS is the empowerment of young people to demand and track social and economic justice.

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WHAT WE DO

Not Ripe for Marriage Campaign
ROOTS embarked on The Not Ripe for Marriage campaign to end child marriages in Zimbabwe in November 2014. The overall objectives of the campaign were to build a movement of people with increased awareness on child marriages and committed to end the practice, influence change in the policy environment and advocate for legislative review and realignment of the customary law and marriage act to be pegged at the same age as the Legal Age of Majority (18). Ultimately the campaign which had a lot of activities targeting the grassroots level sought to see community members displaying a change in existing attitudes, behaviours and norms around child marriage and have community members beginning to exhibit commitment to end child marriage in their communities